It’s time to write your next social media post, but you sit and stare at the empty status space not knowing what to say. A lot of people have this problem, from newbie business owners to veteran social media managers.
It’s frustrating when you lack the creative inspiration to come up with something, and a waste of time when you sit there just staring at the screen.
I’ve come up with a simple method of helping your generate ideas for social media posts. Ideally, you would set this to a plan or schedule, but you can also use it to come up with stuff on the fly.
Breaking social media content up into 5 categories helps you come up with content, but it also helps you create diverse and engaging content. It’s an acronym that I call P.I.E.C.E. Just think of each content category as an essential piece to your social media marketing strategy.
Promotion
Promotional posts call people to take action with your brand. This helps turn people who just fans and followers to leads and customers.
These posts are direct links to your website to take action by signing up for something or buying something. These are most obvious posts for social media brand managers, but you want to limit the number of times you post these. If you overdo it, your brand begins to look sales and spammy, and people stop interacting.
Examples of social media promotion include:
- Signups for an email optin
- Registrations for an event
- Signups for consultations or more information
- Direct promotion of products or services
Inspiration
Inspirational posts build likability with your audience. This helps create positive association with your brand and makes people more likely to interact with your in the future.
These posts affirm your audience in their struggle and create a warm, feel-good emotion. They position you as the encouraging partner who’s on their side. These are also highly interactive and shareable.
Examples of social media inspiration include:
- Quotes from notable people
- Quotes from your own brand
- Encouraging messages specific to the problems in your industry
- Success stories and statements from previous customers or notable people
Education
Educational posts build your authority in your industry. This shows your audience that you understand their problems and are well-suited to provide a solution.
These posts provide enough information to teach people about the problem and give them small solutions. Ultimately, you’ll educate them about why they need your brand to solve their problem.
Examples of social media education include:
- Short tips to solve your customers problems
- Explainer graphs or videos
- Links to articles on your blog
- Links to articles on other websites
Community
Community posts build credibility through social proof. This creates confidence in your potential customers through showing stories from your existing customers.
These posts help put your potential customers in the shoes of someone who’s already bought from your business. They are one of the most convincing pieces of content that you can publish.
Examples of social media community include:
- Testimonials from customers
- Stories of customer success
- Features and stories from your own team
Entertainment
Entertaining posts add personality to your brand. It creates likability with your audience by making you more relatable and approachable.
These posts simply make people smile and laugh. They’re highly likable and highly shareable, just make sure it’s in line with your brand and relevant to your industry.
Examples of social media entertainment include:
- Pop culture memes
- Funny gifs
- Short comics
- Short, fun or funny videos
You can use these categories for almost any platform, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram. When starting a basic social media strategy, I usually create a 5-day plan, posting once a day. So the schedule could look something like this:
- Monday – Inspiration
- Tuesday – Education
- Wednesday – Community
- Thursday – Promotion
- Friday – Entertainment
As you can see, it doesn’t have to go in the order of the acronym – just whatever works best for your brand.
Take just a few minutes to brainstorm what types of posts you could create for your brand under each category, and you’ll have enough content to fill an entire month easily.